Six Women and the InvasionMéléra, Marguerite-Yerta
History
Six Women and the Invasion
Méléra, Marguerite-Yerta
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
However, some attention had to be paid to the sick. The orderly was
there for that purpose. He was a big stout man, whose eyes seemed
starting from their sockets. He did not like to be called up in the
afternoon--he took a nap--and still less in the night. His remedies--the
same for every sickness--were most economical: "Keep on low diet, apply
cold compresses." Yet he understood his business well enough.
Our hostess, Mme. Charvet, a wealthy landowner, suddenly fell ill of a
disquieting haemorrhage. No doctor in the village, not even in the
neighbourhood. We ran in haste to fetch "Goggle-eyes."
"Oh, please, please, come!..."
"Goggle-eyes" lost no time in coming, showed assiduous attention to the
patient, punctured her, and rode on a bicycle to Marle in order to fetch
medicines. A few days after, a poor emigrant, mother of six small
children, was attacked by the same disease. He was sent for in vain; and
left her forty-eight hours without help. It was indeed a miracle that
she did not depart this life.
This proves clearly that to the mind of a German, even though he be a
_Sozial-Democrat_, the skin of a capitalist will ever be superior to the
skin of a starveling.
The physician was not our sole caller. A few other ones came when the
straw was still clean, and when we received a pound of bread a day. A
stout commandant, and three days after, a thin commandant came to visit
the camp. Both the stout and the thin looked extremely well satisfied,
and seemed to say:
"What splendid organisation! How perfectly everything is getting on!
Really, nobody but Germans could settle things like that!"
The thin commandant was escorted by the official interpreter of the
camp. He never asked a question of the people, for many reasons, the
principal being that he did know the language of Voltaire. The very
first day he had given a sample of his talents by asking a youth:
"Hé ... vous ... combien hannées vous havoir?"
And the boy, stretching his legs and hands, stood there gazing, gaping
at his interlocutor, and his whole countenance answered:
"I don't understand German!"
Therefore mimicry and loud cries bore a great part in the relations
between soldiers and emigrants.
The stout commandant piqued himself on French. In one of the rooms of
the farm he asked:
"You are comfortable here, aren't you?"
And the women, pickled in respect, answered all with one voice:
"Oh, yes, sir, yes!"
"You get good soup, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, sir, yes!"
"You get a lot of bread, don't you?"
"Oh, yes, sir, yes!"
"When you reach France you will tell the French you have been leniently
dealt with, won't you?"
"Oh, yes, sir, yes!"
The stout commandant went away, proud of himself and proud of being one
of those Germans who know how to organise camps for refugees.
"Rely on our saying how we have been dealt with," bantered the old
women, the moment the officers' large backs were turned.
Another caller was a clergyman, who was quite different from the others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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